Santa Clara County does not want to participate in a federal
program that shares local inmates’ information with federal
officials in order to enforce federal immigration laws.
Santa Clara County does not want to participate in a federal program that shares local inmates’ information with federal officials in order to enforce federal immigration laws.
The board of supervisors voted unanimously today to opt out of the U.S. Secure Communities program – almost 18 months after the county was enrolled in the program without being told they did not have to participate, according to county staff.
Secure Communities was introduced nationwide by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in May 2009. Participating counties share fingerprints and other inmate data with the federal office, which uses the information to enforce civil immigration laws.
The federal initiative is at odds with the county’s policy not to assist in the enforcement of federal immigration law. Supervisors noted that participation might jeopardize the safety of county residents by discouraging them from calling police or seeking services out of fear that their immigration status will be questioned.
“This program does not make any community in our county safer, because it creates fear among our residents and prevents them from reporting crime,” said Supervisor George Shirakawa, chair of the board’s Public Safety and Justice Committee. “Our responsibility as a county is not to enforce immigration law at the expense of losing our residents’ trust.”
Secure Communities has been widely criticized for resulting in the detention and deportation of people with no criminal convictions or convictions for minor offenses such as driving without a license, despite being promoted as a program targeting serious offenders, according to county staff.
Currently, the county’s Department of Corrections shares the fingerprints of anyone arrested locally to the California Department of Justice, county staff said. Historically, the state has shared the information with the federal government, only for criminal law enforcement purposes.
Under Secure Communities, the Justice Department allows fingerprint data from local agencies to be compared to fingerprints in the Department of Homeland Security’s electronic database of possible immigration offenders, county staff said. When these comparisons result in the identification of potentially undocumented immigrants, federal agents ask for assistance from counties to detain, question and take custody of individuals.
The federal offices enrolled Santa Clara County in Secure Communities in May 2009, county staff said. The county did not know about the federal program until October 2009. Furthermore, based on an understanding that the county’s participation in Secure Communities was voluntary, the DOC did not respond to an information packet it received from federal officials, who activated the immigration enforcement program in May.
“It is unfortunate this so-called voluntary federal program was implemented without our knowledge and without our approval,” said Ken Yeager, president of the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors. “We strive to implement transparent policies that are consistent with our priorities. We do not see how this kind of forced ‘collaboration’ can make Santa Clara County a better place.”
In response to a request from county counsel Miguel Márquez, the Department of Homeland Security confirmed that Secure Communities is a voluntary program and provided a potential “Opt Out” process, county staff said.
With today’s vote, the board authorized the county executive and county counsel to take necessary actions to opt out of participation in Secure Communities. Following the board’s direction, the county staff plan to send a formal notification to the federal ICE Agency and the California attorney general requesting that they stop using fingerprints collected in Santa Clara County to determine immigration status or investigate immigration violations.
